An Intimate History of the Front: Masculinity, Sexuality, and German Soldiers in the First World War by Jason Crouthamel (review)

A number of recent studies have focused on gender identity among German soldiers during both World War I and II. Notable examples of this include Ute Frevert’s A Nation in Barracks (2004) and Monika Szcepaniak’s Militärische Männlichkeiten in Deutschland und Österreich im Umfeld des Grossen Krieges (2011). Jason Crouthamel’s book An Intimate History of the Front contributes to this scholarship through an analysis of constructions of the masculine ideal apart from those presented by the German cultural elite during World War I. According to Crouthamel, German front soldiers created “multiple masculinities” in order to cope with the stresses of war. The author uses sources such as newspapers, court documents, soldiers’ personal diaries, and letters in order to demonstrate that soldiers both embraced and deviated from contemporary ideals of masculinity such as being self-disciplined and emotionally controlled. These soldiers sought emotional support and compassion both from correspondence with wives, girlfriends, and mothers as well as from comradeship with men. At times, they exhibited more feminine characteristics such as nurturing and empathy, often embracing “homosocial and homosexual behaviors and desires” (3).

Crouthamel begins his study by examining how mainstream German publications foregrounded the masculine soldier ideals of honor and sacrifice, admonishing soldiers that exhibited “effeminate” characteristics as lazy and self-centered (22). Popular cultural depictions in the press likewise emphasized German women as selfless nurses and devoted wives in contrast to women from France and Britain, who were thought to be sexualized and masculinized (27). German soldiers were supposed to practice abstinence and to steer clear of the “whores” from other nations that threatened to spread venereal diseases and to weaken the virility of the German armed forces. The fear of physically and psychologically damaged soldiers returning to the home front was a prominent idea in medical, religious, and military journals both during and after World War I. Military authorities felt that criminal activity exhibited by returning soldiers was due to pathological degeneracy instead of the traumatic war experience (42). In light of this assumption, many experts thought that these soldiers could be cured by returning them to action on the front (51).

The “crisis of masculinity” (65–119) was perceived differently by the soldiers themselves. Soldiers exhibited contradictory expressions of emotion in their first-hand accounts adopting both a patriarchal disposition as well as desperately seeking emotional support from their loved ones. They expected their wives and girlfriends to remain stalwart in managing things at home (68). At the same time, they were expressing their emotional weakness in dealing with the horrors of the trenches (70). They managed this psychological trauma through acts of gender transgression exemplified by their “love and friendship” of fellow soldiers. These relationships could then take on levels of intimacy that can be regarded as homosocial bonding, paralleling a marital relationship (117).

Crouthamel’s analysis of homosexual soldiers’ letters and testimonies showed that these individuals exhibited typically “masculine behaviors” in the trenches as warfare allowed a space for the creation of “homosexuals as hypermasculine warriors” (121). Despite his own opposition to war, sexual researcher Magnus Hirschfeld viewed the masculine traits exhibited by homosexual soldiers on the front as a means of challenging negative stereotypes (129). This view of homosexuals was not maintained after the war as veteran gay soldiers were charged with “abnormal behavior” as well as being outsiders that were inciting revolution (134). Civilians and veterans in the Weimar period interacted with distrust and uncertainty. A strong rightwing contingent emerged in opposition to the psychologically damaged soldier. When the Nazis took power in 1933, they withdrew pensions from World War I soldiers who had experienced symptoms of war hysteria. Classifying war hysterics as “hereditarily ill,” the Nazi’s targeted these men in the T-4 “Euthanasia” program.

Crouthamel provides a valuable contribution to the scholarship of both history and gender studies by...